How are these going, either with hybridizing or just with life in general? My first real year in hybridizng has been marked by a lot of trial and error, but has ultimately been a very productive and rewarding process.
I recently harvested my first hips made from intentional crosses. So far I’ve got:
Julie Andrews x Scentimental
White Lies x Scentimental
Easy Bee-zy Knock Out x Cinco de Mayo (didn’t realize they both had Julia Child as a parent until after)
Paradise x mystery pollen because I was drunk and forgot to label it.
True Perfume x Iceberg (early abort, not getting my hopes up)
True Perfume x Seaside Blush (another abort, only one seed)
I have a lot more in the works. These crosses were really just me making due with what I had at the start of spring while the cuttings that I’m most excited to work with were growing out. Sadly a lot of those cuttings are once-bloomers so it’s looking like I’ll have to wait until next year to really get the ball rolling. If I had propagated them better and faster I probably could have avoided that, but like I said, lots of trial and error.
Further, this spring was marked by record-setting rains and it took me a while to figure out how to store and apply pollen effectively, so between that and a later heatwave I have seen a lot of aborts. I learned last year that a lot of my roses don’t like to set hips until later in the year when it starts to cool back down, so I’m going to make a big push in early fall just in the hopes that winter doesn’t come early.
All in all, I am really enjoying the process and having a lot of fun. I even waded through a field of posion ivy and wild blackberry thicket to forage r. foliolosa pollen from the wild.
Into my 3rd hybridising and 4th year growing rose seeds. Stopped pollinating and started collecting pollen for next season. It’s looking much more successful than last year at this point, still a long way to go. Only germinated 7 plants out of 127 seeds. Out of those I have culled down to 3… The year before I started with 64, which is now done to 7… Probably soon to be 6. I have probably the same amount of hips as I had seeds last season!
I wish I could say I was drunk when I smeared ‘Violacea/La Belle Sultane’ pollen onto the perfect bullseye of stigmas on ‘Charles de Mills’!!
But I wasn’t. Why would I make a cross that’s never going to give me precocious-bloom!? “MOAR PURPLE!!!”, was the only thought in my head at the moment… (The hip looks great, btw. Want it?)
This year looked a lot different than last, as far as germination went; I got TWO seedlings from OP ‘Golden Wings’ (100% increase over last year’s 1), and I’m still waiting for the second seedling (very branchy, very healthy, VERY PRICKLY) to bloom. The first had a few extra petals, it’s a stretch to say “semi-double”, but it may get there on its second bloom. I’m watching the next bud like a hawk.
‘Outta the Blue’ and ‘Lambert Closse’ have given me each a handful of very healthy seedlings, so they’ll be particularly “put upon” in the future.
‘Abraham Darby’ was a bust this season, with only one seedling germinating, but when I look at what it gave from OP seed last year, I hike up my Big Boy Pants and smear pollen liberally.
There’s always hope!
Right?
This time of the year can be a bit depressing. Out of 291 crosses this spring, I am left with (as of today) 141 still apparently viable hips. Every day I find more which aborted. If it’s like most years, I’ll only get about 25% remaining in the fall.
The extraordinarily extreme weather conditions this year are up to now a real challenge for nature. Many pollinations have fallen off or yellowed. Only a small proportion will remain. I am therefore happy that I still have some achenes from last year. Maybe that will alleviate the situation a bit for me.
Since this seems to be a pretty common issue, does anyone have or know of any good heat-resistant seed parents? It would be really nice to have a broodmare to throw pollen on when the more sensitive roses start aborting in the heat.
So far for me the Easy Bee-zy KO has been my most reliable seed parent through the summer, but it’s still losing a lot of hips as highs have hit the 90s every day and the rain went away. I’m sure at least some of this was from user-error on my part to be fair though.
Every year, my most reliable broodmare by far is Sunsprite. It is very generous with accepting almost any pollen I throw at it, and very forgiving of technique and weather conditions. It is also above average for number of successful germinations.
I used her for 46 crosses this spring, and as of today, 42 still look good.
I found myself HAVING to re-add Sunsprite to my stable this year. Even with the BS it sometimes/often suffers, it still manages to grow and bloom well here for me.
I’m particularly hopeful for my cross of it w ‘J. P. Connell’, to mix up the yellow-inheritance and foliage health.
In my case, it’s not just about heat stress, but also about long periods of heavy rainfall followed by a drastic drop in minimum temperatures. Added to that I want to mention again the cold spring until almost the end of May, which severely affected the roses by starting in the growing season. In view of these meteorological influences, the failure of a disproportionate number of crossings is expected and does not really surprise. Only hybridization in a greenhouse could have helped. Maybe things will be better next year.
The uncertainties of weather are part of why I like using rugosas so much. They ripen very fast, which shortens the window for potential bad things to happen. So if I pollinate in April, the hips will be ripe just before the worst of the heat comes.
For the rest, I too am experiencing the frustration of seeing high numbers of hip failure. I console myself with the belief that the few hips that do hang in there in spite of adverse conditions hold more promise for resilient babies. Something like epigenetics (?), with the resulting rose seedlings having better resistance to the stresses their parents experienced, but that’s just my unscientific hunch.
I agree with you @KDickinson , that the late summer/early fall gives a valuable second chance for more pollinations, and look forward to it!
I actually just got noticed my first rugosa seedling blooms yesterday! I didn’t expect any to bloom in the first year since the hips came from a species rugosa and not a hybrid.
I went ahead and pollinated one just on the off chance that it develops.
